Paris 2024 will see a new champion crowned in the women’s 100m and 200m track events after Jamaican megastar Elaine Thompson-Herah withdrew from her country’s trials, dashing her hopes of winning more Olympic gold in France.
Thompson-Herah completed the 100m-200m double at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, but announced on Instagram on Thursday (AEST) that she would not be racing at Jamaica’s Paris 2024 trials, and therefore the Olympics, due to an injury suffered earlier in June.
Thompson-Herah said she suffered a small Achilles tendon tear during a 100m race at the New York Grand Prix, where she finished ninth and clocked 11.48 seconds (-2.1 wind).
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Thompson-Herah’s setback also means the Jamaicans will have to defend their Olympic gold medal in the 4x100m relay without the woman known as “Fast Elaine”.
Phenomenal athletes and larger-than-life characters such as Sha’Carri Richardson, Noah Lyles, Fred Kerley, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Karsten Warholm and Armand “Mondo” Duplantis will have the Stade de France rocking in Paris, but the withdrawal of Thompson-Herah has robbed the Olympic athletics competition of a blockbuster figure.
Despite her withdrawal from the Jamaican trials, Thompson-Herah, who turns 32 this week, signalled her intent to return to the track.
“It’s a long road but I am willing to start over and keep working and to make full recovery and resume my track career,” Thompson-Herah wrote on Instagram.
“I am hurt and devastated to be missing the Olympic this year but at the end of the day it’s sports and my health comes first.
“Not the birthday gift I was hoping for but God whatever you have in store for me I will wait and I will still continue to work towards my goals that I haven’t achieved yet.”
The Jamaican speedster is yet to win an individual world championship title. She was a member of Jamaica’s triumphant 4x100m relay team at the 2015 world titles in Beijing, but world championship victory in the 100m and 200m has remained elusive. Tokyo will host the next edition of the world championships in September next year.
Thompson-Herah is also among the many top sprinters of the past 30-odd years who’ve tried to eclipse the 100m and 200m world records of US legend Florence Griffith-Joyner, whose times of 10.49 (0.0) and 21.34 (+1.3) set in 1988 remain unbeaten.
Richardson, America’s sprinting queen, is favoured to win gold in the 100m and 200m at the Paris Games. She qualified for the 100m dash by winning the final at the US trials with a time of 10.71 (+0.8) this week. She’s now set to begin her 200m trials campaign at Eugene’s Hayward Field.
“I will be definitely watching hopefully from the stands and cheer [sic] my country Jamaica,” Thompson-Herah wrote.
“I WILL BE BACK.”